Musicians Lifeline was initially formed in 2010 as The Southern New England Musicians Fund, Inc. by James Whittemore and George Bickford to help professional musicians with medical and social needs. Our first beneficiary was becoming increasingly debilitated by undiagnosed medical problems. He had no medical insurance and therefore ignored his slowly worsening condition. He had worked off the books thereby having not accrued any Social Security benefits. We had raised about $4,200 through a recurring musical event called “Jammin’ at The Tree” where local musicians came out on a Sunday afternoons and jammed for free to raise money to help that first beneficiary find a diagnosis and possible solution to his increasing disability. Through the years a cadre of generous supporters have helped perform, promote and staff these events, as well. What began as an effort to initially help a single beneficiary, has grown to help 20, at last count.
In 2014 through efforts by The UConn Law School we changed the organizational name to achieve 501 C (3) status from The Internal Revenue Service. Musical events held and promoted by the organization as well as others has been our primary source of replenishment of grant funds.
Primarily the fund has helped local musicians with their medical needs and with social situations. Secondarily we’ve helped “out of region musicians” with medical needs like ALS meds, blindness treatments, and Lupus. Over the years we’ve helped stave off foreclosures and property liens. The fund has helped some at the end of their rope purchase used cars (2), evictions due to illness (5), bankruptcies (1), medical procedures (3), utility payments for illness (3). Primarily grants have been paid to creditors and providers on the grantee’s behalf. Grant Applications are available on our website.
Jams have become an increasingly unreliable source for fundraising purposes as our community has begun to “age out”. In addition, grantees are pretty much invisible. We don’t release grantee’s names or how much they have received and none have stepped forward with any testimonials.
Henceforth, we are hoping to replenish our funds through the production of musical events at varying venues in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
We are planning a show on Sunday afternoon, May 7th from 3 to 7PM with the headlining act being David “Lefty” Foster and the Shaboo/ Mohegan Sun All Stars featuring Christine Ohlman. Opening for them will be The Colbys with John Colby and Beverly Rolehr. We are looking for sponsors to help us defray the production cost for this event which are anticipated to be $3,000 to $4,000 dollars.
